Earth’s Core Rotates Faster than Surface

A new study by geologists at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign shows that the Earth’s core rotates at a faster rate than the Earth’s surface, confirming suspiciouns scientists have had for a long time. The solid inner core has an uneven consistency, with some parts denser than others, and this can either speed up or slow down shock waves from earthquakes as they pass through. So the researchers speculated that if the Earth’s inner core is rotating faster than the rest of the planet, then shock waves from waveform doublets would enter and exit through different parts of the core despite originating from roughly the same spot on the planet’s surface.